This study describes the occurrence of IncR plasmids carrying blaNDM-1 and rmtF in Egypt, raising concerns regarding this type of replicon and its role in the transmission of these resistance determinants.

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Acinetobacter baumannii has emerged as a problematic nosocomial pathogen due to its antibiotic resistance as well as its ability to colonize and cause serious infection among patients. This study aimed to evaluate the ability of A. baumannii to form biofilms as well as to investigate the antibacterial activity of cinnamaldehyde against carbapenemresistant strains of A. baumannii. A total of 23 A. baumannii clinical strains were screened for their ability to form a biofilm using tissue culture plate method. Cinnamaldehyde antibacterial ability was investigated on planktonic cells and its biofilm inhibition ability was tested. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was applied to confirm the antibiofilm effect of cinnamaldehyde. Biofilm formers (86.95%) were categorized into strong (17.39%), moderate (52.17%), and weak (17.39%). Cinnamaldehyde showed a strong antimicrobial activity against planktonic cells of A. baumannii at low concentrations. The best antibiofilm activity was achieved at ½ minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and ¼ MIC causing inhibition percentages ranging from 49.5% to 71.2% and 18.5% to 29.6%, respectively. Cinnamaldehyde exerted strong antimicrobial and antibiofilm properties indicating their potential therapeutic value that can be used as an option for treating biofilm associated clinical problems caused by A. baumannii.

Background: Enterococci are intrinsically resistant to clinically achievable concentrations of aminoglycosides. However, high-level resistance to aminoglycosides (HLAR) is primarily due to the acquisition of genes encoding aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes (AMEs). Aminoglycosides along with cell wall inhibitors are given clinically for treating enterococcal infections. The current study was conducted to investigate the rate of HLAR and to determine aminoglycoside resistance encoding genes profile in enterococcal isolates from different clinical specimens. Results: From 120 Enterococcus species, 50 (41.7%) enterococcal isolates were proven to have HLAR, 78% (39/50) have high-level gentamicin resistance (HLGR), and 74% (37/50) were high-level streptomycin-resistant (HLSR). HLGR isolates carried aminoglycoside modifying gene aac (6′)-Ie-aph (2′)-Ia in 26/39 (66.7%) of isolates, whereas 32/37 (86.5%) of HLSR carried aph (3′)-IIIa gene and were observed in E. faecalis, E. faecium, E. gallinarum, and E. casseliflavus. The aph (2′)-Ib, aph (2′)-Ic, and aph (2′)-Id that encode HLGR could not be detected. Conclusions: The high detection rate of HLAR among the studied Enterococcus species and the coexistence of HLGR and HLSR strains provide crucial insights to the necessity of routine testing for HLAR in the microbiology lab. The main AME genes among HLGR and HLSR enterococci were aac (6′)-Ie-aph (2″)-Ia and aph (3′)-IIIa, respectively.

Larvicide UltrasonicationSynthetic insecticides cause pollution to the environment. In addition, insects develop resistance toward them. So, there is an urgent need for effective safe alternatives. In the current study, nanoemulsion was prepared from essential oil of Cirtus sinensis by the ultrasonic method. The efficacy of the nanoemulsion was evaluated against larvae of Culex pipiens and compared with that of the bulk emulsion. The mean droplet size of the nanoemulsion was 78.8±14.2 nm with poly dispersity index (PDI) value 0.28. The LC 50 for the nanoemulsion and the bulk emulsion were 27.4 and 86.3 ppm, respectively related to Citrus sinensis essential oil. The Larvicidal activity of the formulated nanoemulsion was more toxic than that of bulk emulsion. The results showed that nanoemulsion of Cirtus sinensis EO can be used for control of vector-borne disease Culex pipiens larvae.

In this study, numerical phenetic method and RAPD-PCR technique were carried out on the species Coccinella undecimpunctata L. and its 13 aberrations which were collected from 10 localities in Egypt. The morphometric analysis and phenotypic features were determined for the aberrations to reveal the phenetic relationships among them. The resulted phenogram showed high degree of variations and affinities (Similarity coeffeciant ranged from 44.7 to 85.7%). RAPD fingerprint profiles were generated by using 5 random primers on genomic DNA to evaluate their phenetic relationships and to investigate the molecular markers among the aberrations genotypes. The similarity coefficient of the produced DNA fragments ranged from 40% to 93.75%. Cluster analysis based on both morphometric and RAPD data showed that the 14 morphs are grouped into 9 clusters against 8 clusters respectively. In addition, PCA plot allowed differentiating three groups from morphometric data against four groups from RAPD data.